**4. Learnings from the YM codesign process: developing family math resources with families and educators**

As part of YM, we have been able to work in close collaboration with early childhood educators and families with young children. The goal has been to support teachers' instructional practice, teachers' family engagement around math, and families' math play at home. Together we have codesigned many additional games and the supports and resources that accompany them. For example, during professional learning sessions with educators and family math workshops with families, we debriefed which aspects of the family math program were working and which aspects could be improved. We brainstormed design changes together, then we modified the materials and brought these revised materials back to get feedback on the new versions. This process has been transformative in creating our current family math resources. These are some of the principles that were most important.

#### **4.1 Games need to be adaptable to children of different ages**

Children in Head Start classrooms range in age from 2.9 to almost six years old. Likewise, families have siblings of different ages. Families and teachers found that the games they played the most were the ones that they could play with children of different ages. In *Numbers, Numbers, 1, 2, 3*, adults could play with just one, two, or three fingers for younger children (ages two- or three-year-olds), but go up to 10 or even 20 with older children. Likewise, with *Roll Two*, children could play a variation with just one die and numbers one to six when they are younger. This meant that when the younger children ask, C*an I play too?*, parents and teachers were able to say, *Yes!*, and adapt the game so they were also successful.

#### **4.2 Easy to access written game directions**

Both families and teachers asked for home versions of classroom math games. Teachers asked for games they could easily send home to families, and families asked for fun games to play and incorporate into their family time. In addition, families and teachers asked for the games to be accompanied by easy-to-follow instructions in multiple languages. We redesigned our original instruction sheets to be visual with images and icons to make them easier to follow and written with an informal voice and everyday language to reinforce the idea that the games are fun and easy to use.

#### **4.3 Video directions**

Going beyond written directions, teachers and families thought to create short game direction videos that can be watched on a mobile device and easily shared with friends and family. These "how to play" videos could quickly and easily illustrate the game rules and key math concepts the games addressed. We created these videos so that you only see the gameplay so that they can easily be voiced over or subtitled in different languages to increase their accessibility.
